Odle Middle School students cheered on their five classmates last week who will represent the United States at the International Rocketry Contest in London next month.
The school celebrated Space Potatoes rocket team members Mikaela Ikeda, Karl Deerkop, Stephanie Han, Larry Jing and Srivatshan Sakthinarayanan on June 16, along with members of the school’s two other rocketry program.
The Space Potatoes rose through the ranks at various competitions this school year, eventually winning the world’s largest student rocket contest, the Team America Rocketry Challenge, in May. The students were awarded $20,000 in scholarships as well as $1000 to support Odle’s rocketry program.
The challenge was created in 2002 as a one-time celebration of the Centennial of Flight, but its popularity led to it becoming an annual event. This year, approximately 5,000 making up 100 teams competed at the national contest in Virginia.
“Over 60,000 high school and even middle school students have been affected by this competition, which aims to develop STEM education and increase their capabilities to become part of the engineering and technology workforce that we need for the future,” Aerospace Industries Association President Dave Melcher said of the national competition.
This year, teams were tasked with building a rocket that could fly to 850 feet and back in 44 to 46 seconds. Also along for the ride were two eggs, which had to arrive at their destination undamaged.
The 19 Odle students who competed this year conceptualized and tested their rockets for months, helping one another in the process.
None of the rocket teams would have made it alone, the teams’ coach Brendan Williams said. The kids would meet each week and go over what struggles they were having and what they had found success with.
“It showed me that all of the teams can work together as a larger team,” said Sakthinarayanan.
Odle Middle School had never sent a team to the national competition, let alone the international one, before this year. The teams’ focus had just been on doing their best, so the Space Potatoes thought some mistake had been made when their name was called as the winners, Sakthinarayanan added.
“I felt like I was hovering five feet off of the ground for the rest of the day,” teammate Ikeda said.
The team members are excited to meet new people and have fun in London this summer, but have a lot of preparation to do. Although they won’t be altering the design of their rocket, the young students will have to present their design and work to a panel of officials.
“We’re not going to touch the rocket — it’s something like one in every four or five launches will crack a fin, so the more you touch a rocket, the more chance you have of breaking it. We’re working on our presentation. That’s new for us,” said Jim Petoskey, Odle’s rocketry assistant coach.
